NHS "big brother" database scaled back

Big Brother Watch has been a consistent opponent of the government's attempts to introduce what a major national newspaper has termed a "big brother database" storing the medical records of every patient in the United Kingdom. Aside from being hugely costly to implement, such a system would be both intrusive and open to abuse at the hands of unscrupulous individuals.

As a BBW research paper published in April showed, private patient records are already widely accessible by more than 100,000 non-medical personnel, often without appropriate background checks. 

The announcement today that the system is going to be scaled back to include "only patients' most basic information" such as allergies and possible adverse reactions to drugs should therefore be welcomed - but only partially.

While the Department of Health have confirmed that those being added to the database in the coming months will receive an 'opt out' form exempting them from the scheme, the records of more than two million people have already been uploaded - in many cases without a full explanation having been offered to them as how to opt-out of the service.

The Department for Health and National Health Service bodies must do all they can to right this wrong. Members of the public have an absolute right to confidentiality when it comes to their personal medical records.

By Daniel Hamilton

Comments

[Sati Pera]

Why have you tagged this article Burning our money? The stated aim of this site is.... Big Brother Watch fights injustice and campaigns to protect our civil liberties and personal freedoms. This does not extend to sharing with us your opinion of whether you think money is being wasted or not.

You should try to keep your Tax Payers Alliance Tory tendencies under control when writing pieces or this site will never recover from the reputation it has of being a Tory Party small government front group. I half expect to see a link to the USA TEA party movement every time I come to your site.

[guy herbert]

You need to read the small print closely. The Home Office used to insist that the ID database would contain "only the most basic information", too. As far as I can see this "scaling back" amounts to no change.

[opt out]

We should be concerned about the second part of the following sentence (appearing in the Dept of Health website about this matter)

There needs to be a clearly defined minimal scope of the Summary Care Record, with additional information only added following the explicit consent of the patient.

This clearly suggests that additional information can and will be added over and above the minimum that the DOH is drawing attention to. This is the thin edge of the wedge and how long before the restrictions are forgotten and information that some might be surprised to find on their Summary Care Record? I opted out but as my opt form (and the personal data it contained) was then sent (without my consent and knowledge to another health organisation for a totally unrelated matter) I can see that we are far from having secure confidential records even for those who have opted out.

[Sati Pera]

We have never been able to control who has access to our medical records. When the records were all in manilla envelopes we had to trust in the integrity of the people who had access to them down at the doctors surgery.

Computers have made data more portable so that a single security breach has more serious implications, but the issue in both cases is who should have access to the information not the type of information and the scale of the database.

I do not see anything wrong with having a national patients record system. There are medical and efficiency benefits to be had. Leaving the data fragmented because we can't institute a decent data protection policy would be a tragedy. The logical extension to not bringing this data together is to go back 30 years; or do we go for the ever popular status quo?

[alfstone]

As we have seen in the past data on government computers is not secure but my concern is also with the situation of NHS staff. My daughter works for the NHS and about five years ago she had to apply for a "smart card" to access the Spine computer system. To get a card (and keep her job) she had to supply the last four digits on her bank card. So no big deal there it's not much good without the other 12 digits but now she has been told that to get an updated card she must supply the NHS with her National Insurance Number. I have checked on several NHS websites and have confirmed that this is true and no NI number, no "smart card", no job. Now that is worrying.